Q: I follow your column religiously (sorry for the pun!) and you seem like one of the more sensible people in God's Public Relations Department, so here's our problem:
My wife and I recently relocated from the Midwest to California and we're having a tough time finding a new church. We consider ourselves Methodists, but we're not hung up on denominational labels since God probably doesn't care what we call ourselves — just as long as we call on Him.
At the risk of sounding like a sacrilegious Goldilocks, we're having trouble finding a church that's "just right." We're glad our new hometown is known for its inclusiveness, but after visiting one church here (several times) our impression was that members spent an unreasonable amount of time congratulating themselves on how great they were for being inclusive, as opposed to acknowledging the God who made them so wonderful. (We thought, "Too soft!")